


until the cat got her

by LuckyDiceKirby



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Harrow the Ninth (Locked Tomb Trilogy), canon-typical bad relationships with your sister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28342878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDiceKirby/pseuds/LuckyDiceKirby
Summary: Coronabeth’s blade pierced her heart with a soft squelching sound. Ianthe grinned as it gushed out blood in entirely the wrong direction, and Corona’s eyes went wide, her whole body shaking, her fingers going slack around her rapier's hilt.“Come on, sweetheart,” Ianthe said, tutting. She wrapped her hand around Corona’s, keeping her grip tight. “What was it Babs always said? I never listened to his lectures, but I’m sure there was something in there about never letting your enemy surprise you.”She slid her hand down to the blade. It was her real hand, not Babs’s, not Harry’s,hers, the one that was a perfect sickly mirror to Corona’s. Ianthe took hold of Coronabeth’s rapier and dragged it and its master forward, slicing her fingers open along its edge. Corona cried out like she was the one being run through.
Relationships: Coronabeth Tridentarius & Ianthe Tridentarius
Comments: 20
Kudos: 55





	until the cat got her

They arranged to meet once the dust had settled. Ianthe told God she was going on a reconnaissance mission; he hardly seemed to realize she’d spoken at all. Maybe if she’d told him the truth, _I’m off to consort with my dear long lost sister, now sworn to your fated enemies_ , she would have gotten the same utter lack of reaction. God, like Ianthe, and perhaps the entire universe, had not been doing so hot lately. 

When Ianthe finally saw her twin again, Corona pulled a rapier on her without even stopping to say _hello_ , or _long time no see, big sis_ , or _so what’s God like after all, and how gloriously fucked up is he_?

Babs parried the first blow easily, and all the rest too—Corona had always trained hard, but she’d learned by watching Babs. A student shouldn’t attempt to outplay the master, at least not without taking the proper precautions first.

“We’re going right to this? Not even a hug?” Ianthe asked, stepping neatly away from a sweep of Corona’s sword. 

“You lied to me,” said her sister, in a hoarse wretched voice, and she attacked again without pause.

Once Ianthe could have counted on one hand—one flesh hand, even—the number of nights they’d spent apart. Now it had been so long since she’d seen her twin that Corona’s hairstyle, a tight high bun that was failing to keep her hair under control, was unfamiliar, and her clothes were only recognizable because Ianthe had seen entirely too many Blood of Eden uniforms in the past few months. Being the last loyal Saint of the King Undying had many perks; avoiding monotony was not one of them. 

Her eyes were the same color as always, Ianthe’s discarded violet, the shade of a fresh blooming bruise, but there were shadows in them now. Corona always did have trouble sleeping.

Ianthe wondered if her sister could see any differences in her, past the blue of Babs’s eyes and the glinting gold of her skeletal arm. Coronabeth didn’t seem particularly interested in catching up, though. Her expression was fixed, her best mask of indifferent determination, the kind she knew better than to think would fool Ianthe. They lied to the world, a united front despite the fractures. But Corona could never lie to her. Even now, alone together on a deserted planet filled with dirt and drab ugly grass and the most uselessly pathetic wan trees Ianthe had ever seen, even on opposite sides of a war, that was how it was. Of course Ianthe knew why she was angry.

Ianthe had learned, very young, that the best way to punish her sister was to ignore her. More than once she had driven Coronabeth to furious tears by simply pretending she wasn’t in the room, refusing to respond to anything she said, even walking away as if nothing was wrong when Corona shoved her. Coronabeth was a creature of the spotlight. She’d confessed once, hidden in the dark, that she often feared if no one was looking at her she would disappear entirely, like she’d never been real at all. “Maybe I’m just a dream,” she’d said. “Maybe you’ll all wake up in the morning and remember that I’m not true.”

“Don’t worry so much,” Ianthe had told her easily. “I’ll always be there to see you.”

It was an odd thought that caught her now, one that made Ianthe stumble, Corona’s rapier slicing her arm and opening up a neat little gash there. Who _was_ Corona when Ianthe wasn’t looking?

At Corona’s next attack, Ianthe stepped into the strike, shouting down the part of her body that was ruled by Babs, that screamed at her to dodge. Ianthe’s body existed in service to her mind; it was good to remind it, every once in a while, who exactly was boss.

Coronabeth’s blade pierced her heart with a soft squelching sound. Ianthe grinned as it gushed out blood in entirely the wrong direction, and Corona’s eyes went wide, her whole body shaking, her fingers going slack around her rapier's hilt.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Ianthe said, tutting. She wrapped her hand around Corona’s, keeping her grip tight. “What was it Babs always said? I never listened to his lectures, but I’m sure there was something in there about never letting your enemy surprise you.”

She slid her hand down to the blade. It was her real hand, not Babs’s, not Harry’s, _hers_ , the one that was a perfect sickly mirror to Corona’s. Ianthe took hold of Coronabeth’s rapier and dragged it and its master forward, slicing her fingers open along its edge. Corona cried out like she was the one being run through. 

“Ianthe,” she said, completely horrified, as if stabbing her sister hadn’t been the goal all along. She didn’t drop the sword. 

“Does it help?” Ianthe asked, sweetly. Her body wanted to fall, though of course Ianthe did not let it. She lost this amount of blood on a near daily basis, but even a Lyctor’s body liked to keep its heart whole and hale. She could feel her right ventricle trying to patch itself up around the blade, achieving nothing but prolonging the sting. “You can kill me as many times as you want, dear. I’ve got plenty of Babs to spare.” 

“Traitor,” said Corona, her eyes fixed on Ianthe’s wound. 

“Not to be a pedant, but you’re the one participating in a large scale coup against God himself.”

“You think I would do this because of _God_?” demanded Corona, voice edging into hysteria. “You think I care that our uniforms don’t match? You betrayed me at Canaan House. You lied. We _said_ , Ianthe! We always said we’d be together, we cut open our palms and we promised and we bribed Babs not to tattle on us, and when you finally could have made it true you picked him instead—”

“Baby,” said Ianthe, “stop it. All your soldiers will know you’ve been crying. Who wants to take orders from a woman who looks like she was just sobbing into her shitty canteen beer?” 

Ianthe thought about that blood promise. They’d been seven. Ianthe told Coronabeth that it was a spell she found in a book, deep old binding necromancy. That was the kind of world bright Corona thought she lived in, where they could just bleed a little and say some words and never be apart. It was for the best that she wasn’t a necromancer. Ianthe had always known that. Corona wasn’t suited to the truth of the work at all.

Corona slumped against her, shaking violently with how hard she was crying. She withdrew her sword from Ianthe’s flesh, slowly, and when it was done Ianthe took her by the face and held her still to watch as the muscle and skin knit back together. 

“It should have been me,” whispered Corona. She reached out her free hand to touch where Ianthe was whole and unharmed, smearing blood across her fingers. “I could have given you that.” With a lurch, she staggered out of Ianthe’s grip, and then she kicked her in the stomach, a solid blow in her regulation Blood of Eden boots. She kicked her again, hard enough to knock Ianthe off her feet and onto the muddy ground. 

Corona fell upon her sister, furious, the kind of supernova tantrum Ianthe had not seen from her since she was fifteen, and wanted so badly to be able to show the pretty girl she liked even the simplest of necromantic tricks. Ianthe had fixed that problem for her with simple enough sleight of hand, had arranged it all perfectly so that Corona got what she wanted, so that she came running back to their shared bedroom with sunlight bursting from her skin, someone else’s spit still lingering along the inside of her lip. She would fix this too. 

“Shh,” Ianthe said soothingly, as Corona beat her hands on her chest, leaving bruises that wouldn’t last, bursting blood vessels that would forget their hangovers in the morning. She dropped Babs’s sword and pet at Corona’s lustrous hair, unflinching even when Corona bit her savagely on the forearm. She took her sister by the wrists and felt all the life go out of her, as though a fresh corpse was sitting on top of her. “It’s all right.” She brought Coronabeth’s hands to her throat, curling each finger, positioning her thumbs above Ianthe’s larynx.

“Fuck you,” spat Coronabeth, her fingers limp, her eyes wild. “You _ate_ him and you left me to rot.”

“Is that what this is about?” Ianthe asked pleasantly. “You’re jealous of Babs for being dinner? I spit out his fucking bones, Corona, is that what you want? To be a fingernail stuck in my teeth?”

Corona let out an incoherent screech of fury, always elegant and poised up until the moment she wasn’t, and she squeezed down hard on Ianthe’s throat, bearing down with all her considerable solid weight. Ianthe wondered dizzily if Corona might break her neck. That would be new.

She didn’t. Corona leaned back with a gasp as if she was the one being strangled, and then she fumbled for her bloody rapier. She slashed it cleanly across her sister’s throat, a neat strike that even Babs would have graced with short-lived approval. Ianthe’s eyes rolled back, her breath gurgling out of her along with her blood. When she got them open again, Corona was watching her neck as it healed, fascinated. 

“That’s really Babs?” she asked, voice curious and suddenly steady.

“No,” said Ianthe. “It’s me. Babs is lunchmeat. We’ve been over this.”

“I was training,” Corona said, as if Ianthe didn’t already know this. “I could do it just as well as him. Better. His left parry is still weak.”

“It was never going to be you,” Ianthe said, as gently as she knew how, the clean burn of cauterization. She rubbed at her own throat, swallowing against the unavoidable roughness left over from the cut. Her hand came away bloody when she raised it to Corona’s cheek. “You’re my baby sister, Corona. How could I do that to you?”

Corona had stopped arguing with Ianthe about which of them was the baby when they were eleven. “You don’t know what it’s like,” she said instead, shoving Ianthe’s hand away. “You have never had any fucking idea what it’s like to be me.”

“The lauded, charming, beautiful daughter of Ida? You’re right, I don’t,” said Ianthe, the infamous, cutting, and sickly one.

“You’ve always been _useful_.” Corona sat back on her heels. “What use am I to anyone now?”

“Is that not why you’re off playing at rebel hero? Why else could you have possibly joined the tragic doomed resistance, my dear dumb sister?”

“I don’t know,” said Corona, her voice thready and lost. “Their uniforms are quite smart, aren’t they? And they know how to throw a funeral, I can tell you that. What other reason is there to do anything? You left me behind.”

“If you were as smart as you like to pretend, you would have found me.”

“Stop it,” snapped Corona, wiping furiously at the blood on her cheek. “If you want your throat slit again so badly, do it yourself. Stop trying to piss me off; there’s no point without the punching bag.” She picked up her sword again, and she put it in Ianthe’s skeletal hand, wrapping each finger around the hilt one by one. “You lost in the end, anyway. You want me alive so bad? You can’t keep it. You can’t keep me. You’ll outlive me no matter what you do.” 

She raised the point of her own rapier against her chest, hand still wrapped around Ianthe’s, her strong grip refusing to let her sister let go. 

“I’m not going to kill you,” Ianthe said, yanking hard against Corona’s hold. “Now who’s being difficult on purpose? We’re not seventeen anymore. Stop threatening to throw yourself off of bell towers. It didn’t suit you then and it doesn’t suit you now.”

“I could make you,” said Corona, voice almost sing-song. “You haven’t been doing Babs’s exercises, have you?” She tugged at Ianthe’s hand, the sword skittering forward. “You know I could make you.”

“And I could fix you, and there’s nothing you could do to stop me,” said Ianthe. The point of the rapier hovered against Corona’s admittedly very smart Blood of Eden uniform, wavering. 

It was true, but a misstep; Corona didn’t like being told what she could and couldn’t do. She collapsed all at once onto Ianthe and the blade. Ianthe jerked back only far enough to stab her sister through the stomach instead of the heart, a jagged long cut. She didn’t mean to twist the sword, but Corona let out an awful little gasp, as if it hadn’t occurred to her it might hurt to die.

Tedious. Ianthe yanked Corona off of her spit and lay her delicately back against the ground, tsking to herself. Corona coughed, her lips livid red and wet with blood. 

“That was stupid,” Ianthe told her dying sister sternly, and set about putting the broken doll back together again. Corona’s guts were not unfamiliar to her; Ianthe had been fixing her up from scrapes for years. “It’s not time for you to go yet, sweetheart. I still need you.”

All the fight seemed to have gone out of Corona. “I’ll get old,” she said, staring glumly up at the sky as Ianthe laboriously glued her flesh back together. “I’ll get as weathered and gray as you. Then I’ll be nothing at all.”

“I don’t know why you’re so angry,” Ianthe said, snippy in the way only her sister could make her. “I’ll still be the one that has to live without you.” Coronabeth had always been terribly ungracious about receiving gifts. Most of the time it was sweet. Ianthe grit her teeth and finished with her work. 

“No,” said Corona. “You never did know.” She closed her eyes, still swollen from all her crying. Ianthe set about putting her messy hair to rights, as if it mattered; Corona could make a rat’s nest sitting atop her head look good. “What am I supposed to do now, Ianthe?”

“Go back to your little war,” advised her sister. “You seemed like you were having fun with it.” 

“Not really.” Corona plucked Ianthe’s golden hand from her hair, and brought it forward to examine it, turning it this way and that, admiring the range of motion. “Where did you get this, anyway? Another perk of Lyctorhood?”

“Harry made it for me,” Ianthe told her, biting back a sigh as she remembered how it had felt: Harrow pinning her down, her fierce dark eyes fixed on nothing but Ianthe, remaking her very bones. 

Corona perked up immediately, the way a golden retriever might jump to investigate a treat left unattended on the counter. Some of her dullness melted away easily, as though she had never been shattered at all. “She’s _Harry_ now?” she asked, sitting up, her eyes bright and laughing. 

It was like reopening a stitched wound and finding that beneath the thread it had been festering all along; Ianthe had known that she missed her sister, but she had forgotten how to feel it. 

“I’ll tell you all the gossip,” Ianthe said. “But promise me you’re done with bleeding for the day, hmm?”

“Fine,” agreed Corona, patting Ianthe’s cheek just a little too hard. She did not attempt to extract an oath in return; Coronabeth knew exactly what her sister’s promises were worth.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr/twitter @luckydicekirby. i care a normal amount about awful sisters!


End file.
